Memoirs of a Clone
by YodaBreaker
Summary: A nameless clone describes the myriad ways in which his wars wear on him. Travel with him on his psychological odyssey from Kamino to the battlefronts of Geonosis, Jabiim, Utapau, and Yavin.
1. Kamino

**Kamino**

I am a clone.

I was formed in cold efficiency from the time I was a zygote. A transparisteel tube was my uterus. I was nourished by bacta instead of amniotic fluid. A medical droid was my placenta, carrying away my wastes and helping me to circulate my blood as I gestated.

As soon as I was hatched, my muscles were trained to execute precise, killing strokes through electrical stimulation. At the same time, my brain was flooded with combat programming, letting my tiny limbs associate those motions with the martial arts I was destined to practice. I was trained as a neonate to fight for whomever would command me in the future.

And I learned to fight without question. Without hesitation. As I learned to roll on my belly, I learned to absorb falls. As I learned to walk, I learned to kick. As I learned to speak, I learned to accept orders without fail.

When the womb-born were busy filling their heads with a variety of educational mush (much of which they would likely forget), I was schooled in the arts of war. Droids helped us learn basic combatives when we were younger. They demonstrated hand-to-hand combat techniques, then they offered themselves for us to practice those techniques. Never once did any of those droids complain about being struck, flipped, or thrown. In fact, they seemed to take pleasure in serving us that way.

Later, as we grew closer to our full height, we practiced our combatives on each other. Our template would himself lead the battle demonstrations. We all savored his instruction most. We pictured ourselves looking in our adulthood as he looked then – handsome, well-muscled, sophisticated. He inspired us. But even then, we wondered which of the scars lining his face would be our own in the years to come.

I have been surrounded by thousands of copies of my face for as long as I can remember. My brothers have been my mirrors. I have seen my development reflected in them. Though we share the same intellect, the same personality, we still compete against each other to perform our martial duties the best.

Nevertheless, when training is done each day, my pod mates and I all share stories of our exploits. Over our meals, we routinely exaggerate our prowess, and we share remarkably similar visions of what our future holds. The training allows us to bond as warriors. The storytelling allows us to bond as friends.

I have been chosen to act as pod leader for this week's exercises. Next week, the clone to my right will assume that role. Next week, the clone to his right will. And so marches the steady progression of duties through each member of the pod. I often think it is the surest way to measure the passage of time.

But I also recognize that these constant role changes teach us that we are interchangeable. If one of us falls, another of us can immediately assume his place. Conversely, we know that none of us is indispensable. In fact, we are made to be dispensable.

I am a man, eager for action. Aching to put all of these years of training, this life of mine, to use.

* * *

_Dear reader, please review this story if you see things in it you like - or things that I can improve. I appreciate your feedback whenever it comes._  



	2. Geonosis

**Jai Muise:** Thank you for your kind words. I, too, think clones are the most unappreciated characters in the Star Wars universe. I also hope to alleviate your disappointment soon by posting more chapters :)**  
**

**

* * *

**

**Geonosis**

I am a clone.

I have finally put my decade of training to use. No longer is my prowess in combat apparent only in battle sims. I have used the knowledge and skills that have been flash-fed into my brain, supplemented by the conditioning my body received over almost a decade of training, to make the enemy submit to my wishes. This is the moment we have been waiting for all of our lives.

I am a warrior. And I now know for whom I fight.

I am a defender of the Republic. I have saved members of the Jedi Order from certain death. I have stopped a droid army from overrunning them. I have watched battle droids fall because of bolts fired from my blaster rifle, earning me twenty-nine notches on the rifle's barrel – one for each droid I felled. I have seen the smoky explosions blow out of their skeletal carcasses. I cheered with my pod mates when we reduced a hailfire droid to flying shrapnel scrap.

I am part of a unit. All of the men who look exactly like me are my brothers. We are each others' lives. We work together, as if we were one. We cover each other. We protect each other. We watch over each other.

We even think like each other. Through our shared genetic code and our years of training together, we know how we will behave in any number of battle situations. We know how we each respond to stress. We know how to comfort each other when one experiences a trauma that others of us do not, for we know how we would all feel when emotionally shocked.

But today is not the day for emotional shocks. Unlike other pods, all of my podmates and I have survived the battle. Several of us have received the first nicks in our armor. I was not one of those lucky ones today, but I will be soon. My armor will bear the marks of my service that extend beyond the dust and debris deposited on it from the desert battlefront.

And I _will_ be fighting in many other battles. The sights, the sounds, the very smells are intoxicating. I now know that no sound is quite as satisfying as that of a blaster bolt ripping a droid asunder. Perhaps this preference was conditioning into me by the thousands of training droids my pod mates and I obliterated during our training with the same blaster rifles and rounds. By the praise we received for each shot that we landed.

And by the same process, my visceral joy at seeing exploding circuitry likely also ingrained itself into my psychological make up. The rending of metallic skins; the sparks jettisoning from charred holes, glowing in their flight; the billows of smoke wafting from the electrical wounds. All of these excite me, make my heart race, my eyes widen, my muscles tense in glee. Perhaps because I was often chosen to hold the droids up when they could no longer support themselves, I also grew enamored of the acrid stench that always emanates from fresh lesions in droid bodies.

Thus, I prefer to fight in closer quarters than many of my pod mates. Whereas they were happy perched atop the gunship, scoring easy kills, I would have been more at ease serving on the ground, smelling the destruction my warrior's skills had wrought. Nevertheless, the time for that will come soon for me.

I will be in the trenches of any battlefront in which the Republic needs me. I will charge any position that the droid army holds, if the Republic demands me to take that ground. I will stay at my post, pumping bolt after bolt into any droids that dare to challenge me and the members of my squad. I will hold the Republic's lines and never fail.

I have a purpose. I keep the Republic secure. Though I have a long fight ahead of me, I welcome the chance to continue proving myself. I have no family, save my brothers, to hinder me in my work. To distract me and my thoughts from the missions facing me. To mourn me, should I fall.

I am a man intent on serving my Republic, protecting it from the Separatist threat.


	3. Jabiim

**Jabiim**

I am a clone.

I have sent countless battle droids to the scrap pile, splattered to the ground the blood of countless organic Seps who join them in the fight against the Republic. I have had more than a few nicks in my armor now. More than a few chunks of flesh taken out of my body.

Yet the medic droids have patched me up well after each battle. And the astromech droids have been indispensible in guiding our starfighters in space battles. I was hatched in the company of machines. They were my tutors, my trainers. And now, I must hate them. Why?

I must hate them because they oppose me. Because they are the backbone of the Sep armies, and because the Seps threaten the very vitality of the Republic. Because they have forced me to rise through the ranks as they cut my superiors down before my eyes. Because I have destroyed too many of them to take pity on them now.

Many of the clones who were hatched with me now look different from me. Through the ravages of battle, we have acquired uniquely shaped scars in different places. Some of us have even lost fingers or limbs. Each wound is a story unto itself, tied to a campaign that led up to it, defined by the action that caused it, and linked with the inevitable recuperation process after it made its mark.

Some of us display our scars proudly after each campaign, taking care to show each last intrusion upon our flesh has given our bodies further character. Others of us hide our wounds away, as if ashamed of them, as if we should have been more careful with our bodies.

I am a strange mixture of both. When my few remaining pod mates are around, I gladly show off my wounds, taking part in the camaraderie that arises from sharing the fruits of battle. But when I am around clones who did not hatch with me, I become demure and refuse to show off my wounds, too afraid of forming tight bonds with clones I may never see again. Even though they are supposed to be my younger brothers.

And when I am by myself, I refuse even to look at my injuries. The memories they bring flood my mind with unbidden thoughts, flood my eyes with wracking sobs when I peruse them. I mourn for myself privately, and for those like me whose wounds have been far more fatal. I learn a lesson from each scar, and I carry it with me. On me.

I have started behaving differently than many of my pod mates in other ways, too. In subtle ways, to be sure – but all the same, I no longer react as predictably as I did during those first battles we fought together. After being surrounded by gore during the most recent futile defenses of this world, I am more fearful, more unwilling to rush and meet the enemy – especially compared to those clones who appear newly hatched to my veteran eyes. I no longer savor the stench of smoldering droids, lest it mean that they can strike at me. I no longer relish retelling stories of the battles I have been in, lest the nightmares return.

Nevertheless, I am not so cowardly as other clones from my gestation period. Many of those who have been in gorier engagements than I have been now actively refuse to go to the front. They take the officer's privilege and stay in the rear guard. They are called cowards, but only to their backs. And only by their superiors.

A few have even deserted – those who have seen the very worst of combat, been in the most harrowing of missions. Most of us have nothing but contempt for the deserters. I have tasted the fear that makes them run, and yet I have stayed at my post. Thus, I cannot hold sympathy for them.

I slog through unforgiving terrain to do my job. The rains and the mud bog us all down, making us easy targets for Sep commandos more intimately familiar with the terrain here than even those of us who are left to decompose here will ever be. I have tasted bitter failure, and my mind has not known how to process it. Our training routines assumed we would be always victorious.

My body creaks under the strain every day. Yet still I fight, still I press our advance, still I hold the line as the Seps dare to charge my position. I do not charge into the front, but I do not shirk my responsibilities. I lead my men to victory – at any price.

I am a man at the height of my powers. A cautious man, a determined man.

* * *

_Please, dear reader, if you haveread the story so far (and especially if you've not taken the time to do so already), I entreat you to review it, to let me know what you think of it - good, bad, or ugly._


	4. Utapau

**Utapau**

I am a clone.

I have managed to live, while so many of my "brothers" have died. But not through my superior skills. All of the men who look exactly like me have exactly the same training as I do. Through dumb luck, random chance, and the whims of fate, I have not been blasted through the heart. I have not been crushed by a seismic wave. I have not been blown out into the vacuum of space. I have not been ordered to guard a garrison that was destined to be overrun. I have not been forced to sacrifice myself for the good of a mission.

I have seen what I would look like on the inside, for I have seen my brothers dead in all manners of violation and dismemberment. What my brains would look like after being passed through by a blaster bolt. How my intestines would spill out after being cut in half by a lightsaber. How my arms and legs would twitch after being smashed under heavy machinery.

I am a flesh-and-blood automaton. Better than the droids I fight only because I have an independent brain. Because I do not require a computer outside myself to guide my actions.

And because of the cause I support. The cruft of the Old Republic has been swept away. I serve an Empire now. An Empire where my military might is what determines what is right. An Empire where battle is the measure of a man, not his kindness or his generosity. These traits, I have never understood. Perhaps they were bred out of me. Perhaps they were battled out of me. Perhaps I will never really know what happened to them.

But as for me, I no longer care if I live or die. Too many of my brothers have perished for me to feel comfortable with anything more than superficial human contact. Even with the men on whom I depend to stay alive. My heart feels as if it no longer has a foothold to support emotional attachments. My fellow clones may as well be dead to me, as so many others have been.

I am still bound to them by duty, but I have no interest in them beyond that. They will likely be dead in a month or two. Or I will. When they mewl about how they wish I were more approachable, I can only laugh to myself at how weak they are. How weak I was when I was their age. As naïve then as they are now. If I do not laugh at them, I will yell furiously at them. And I no longer sleep, for fear that I will awaken screaming in terror.

Perhaps it is the litany of death and maiming that has hardened me so. I dimly remember those times when I felt pleasure from discharging my duty. Those long years ago when I viewed being bonded to my fellow clones as a necessity, rather than an impediment. Now, all of my pod mates are gone. I have no anchors in the roiling sea of humanity that comprises our ranks now.

The fresh faces that used to be my own no longer seem at all familiar. I now expect crisscrosses of scars, some form of mutilation on a clone's face to make him a true brother to me. I think back to my template's face when he would lead the advanced combatives training himself. I used to think he had so many scars – now, I wonder how he managed to live so many unaccelerated years with only those few unnatural lines and pits carved along his brow.

How he managed to avoid the disfiguring loss of eye or nose or lips or arm or leg. How he managed to suffer his first body part loss when a Jedi removed his head during my first battle. My mind still returns to that day with bittersweetness, made all the more bitter by the recognition that we started this war by defending the traitorous Jedi. I can still envision my template's head lying meters from his body, gazing up at my gunship in surprise. And perhaps pride.

I have seen my face – and his – stretched in a thousand different death agonies. I wonder when it will be my turn.

I am not a man. I am not a droid, but I am a machine, all the same.


	5. Yavin

**Mr.Wuff:** I'm so glad that you've been fascinated by this clone's journey through the war; it was encouraging to hear your feedback.

**F.J. Stellar:** I am tremendously heartened and humbled by your effusive praise. I'm thrilled that you enjoyed my story's cerebralnature and that you noticed the stylistic touches I endeavored to place throught the story. I'm honestly not sure what else to say, except "thank you" in as many ways as I can.

**

* * *

**

**Yavin**

I was a clone.

I outlived my usefulness. My growth acceleration continued my double-speed aging long after the war was over. While the womb-born officers around me became fathers, my face and body wrinkled and shrunk away as a grandfather's would. I became a burden to shoulder, not a soldier who shoulders it.

My joints became arthritic, and I lost muscle mass far more quickly than the womb-born soldiers who came to serve under me. My body – that superior body conditioned through ten years of growth and training, honed by hundreds of battles – betrayed me. The only thing that made me truly useful to the Empire flagged in its functioning, became slower, duller, and sluggish. Slowly, I fell apart.

I became an administrator. Or a consultant. Or any of the innumerable meaningless titles that were used to shunt we rapidly aging veterans of the Clone Wars into positions where we "still could be of use to the Empire." Where we could be hidden away from the view of the younger Imperials. Where we could use our minds instead of our failing bodies. Where we could be pushed aside. Marginalized. Forgotten.

The only occupation left to us with any connection to the martial life was as trainer to the Empire's new crops of stormtroopers. Those beasts were grown from a diversity clone hosts, or even worse, recruited from myriad different worlds. The raw meat had no uniformity anymore.

Nothing like when I was hatched. In those days, we were a homogeneous mass of unequaled fighting power.

As the Empire grew, the training routines had to be individualized to meet the diverse learning styles and histories of each new recruit. I was compelled to incorporate a variety of needs into my training plans, rather than having one plan that everyone who was genetically intact would be guaranteed to use most optimally. I even had to devise remedial courses for the raw meat that could not learn my ways.

In my youth, such failures would simply have been aborted, processed, recycled, and fed to those who performed well.

In the end, it was no longer my Empire. I grew weary of living, tired of losing brothers in arms, then those who I considered as sons in my training courses, then the pseudo-grandsons I had trained. I was no longer in contact with any of my clone brothers; the Empire made certain we were never stationed together. They feared that the genetic bonds between us would create an uncontrollable geriatric horde, filled with strategic knowledge gleaned from years of shared combat experience.

They need not have worried. We no longer recognized each other. Or at least, we acted as if we didn't. Because to recognize their wizened, hunched frames would be to recognize my own infirmities all too keenly.

I was last tasked with training the stormtroopers on the Death Star in advanced space combatives. I was to ensure that if there were a hull breach on the Death Star, they would still be able to defend themselves.

However, there was apparently no need for such training. It seemed that the stormtroopers who were assigned to stop an insignificant Rebel band from executing a prison break were the ones who should have been aborted. They _would_ have been aborted, had they hatched with me and had they failed their combat exercises as woefully as they failed in their duty that day.

As it stood, the Rebels escaped with plans to the Death Star. When the warning klaxons sounded to alert the station to the subsequent Rebel assault, I could sense that Tarkin's hubris prevented him from launching an adequate defense against the incoming starfighters. At least Darth Vader had the sense to add his Advanced TIE Fighter and his superior piloting skills to the Imperial starfighter contingent. It turned out that the only Imperial on the station that day who didn't deserve to be aborted lived to fight another day, sent careening into space by a most fortunate mishap.

The inner sections of the Death Star were raped of their oxygen by the voracity of the fire expanding outward from the main power reactor, their denizens left to suffocate before the battle station exploded. Fortunately, I was one of those in the outer sections who was ripped apart by the expanding shockwave of the explosion. Almost immediately, my body was pulverized. It happened so fast that all my mind processed before my skull was crushed was the utter release from pain I felt. My limbs had been atomized, freeing me from the pain of arthritis, of wasting muscles. In the subsequent moments, I was reduced to the elements from which I sprung.

I was released from the pain of being useless. My service to the Empire had been completed. I died in a way most befitting a warrior – in battle. And yet in a most ignominious way – in a battle that was lost by stupidity.

I am stardust. I am released. I am nothing. I am home.


End file.
